Please note that the CC stuff in the source code is in very alpha stage: no more than IETF’s-style “running code” to test a soon-to-be-released specification proposal for streaming Creative Commons licensing meta-data over RTSP/RTP protocols.

A major upgrade to mozCC, the Creative Commons metadata companion for Mozilla-based browers, is now available. This version looks better, fixes a performance problem with some pages, and sets the stage for version 1.0. See Nathan Yergler’s blog post for details.

I’ll be at the California state capitol tomorrow morning to talk to the state senate’s education committee about the public domain and Creative Commons. I’ll be there in a purely informational capacity to provide some context for a broader discussion about community colleges, higher ed, and royalty-free educational materials. More soon.

We are happy to hear that current and upcoming operating systems will have built-in support for application-level metadata. Gnome (Linux), Longhorn (next version of Windows) , and Tiger (next release of OS X) all will be offering some way to store and search metadata for files and applications. Google is also expected to get into search applications on the desktop.

How can Creative Commons take advantage of these technologies to enable CC-aware search and applications on the next generation desktop? Challenge: write a research brief on how to expose CC license info for objects in each major OS or framework.

A-list blogger and CC board member Joi Ito has posted a thoughtful mini essay on why he uses a license that allows commercial use for his blog. He also writes about the decision of whether or not to use a license with the ShareAlike provision.